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BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH 



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JAMES EDWARD ROOT. 



PREPARED BY 



Rev. EDWARD EVERETT HALE, 



FOR THE 



New England Historical and Genealogical Register. 



ALBANY: 
JOEL MUNSELL 

1877. 



4? ^? 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 



James Edward Koot was born in Milton, 
Ulster county, N. Y., on the 18th of August, 
1817. He was the son of Samuel Root of 
Meriden, Conn., and Philotheta Ives Root of 
Bristol, Conn. 

The Root family is one of the oldest Con- 
necticut families. The Iveses settled at New 
Haven as early as 1639, but appear to have 
landed in Boston some years before. 

Mr. Root's school education was carried on 
and ended at the Utica Academy, an institu- 
tion largely patronized by young men design- 
ing to pursue mercantile life. He went to 
Troy in his nineteenth year where he became 
a clerk in the Post Office and in this service 



2 Biographical Sketch. 

he remained for fifteen years and more, pass- 
ing through successive stages of promotion. 

In 1852 he left Troy and went to Europe 
for a somewhat protracted tour for which his 
studies and tastes had particularly prepared 
him. 

He was a curious and intelligent collector 
of prints, books, and pictures, and in this 
journey he established the connections with 
Europe which in more than one matter of 
literature and art have since been so valuable 
to his associates in this society and in the 
community. 

Returning from Europe he took an interest 
in the Wheeler and Wilson sewing machine 
company, and assumed the direction of the 
Boston agency of that company. 

The immense extent of their business has 
made the name of this company a household 



Biographical Sketch. 3 

word in every part of the civilized, and in 
many parts of the uncivilized world. 

Perhaps the younger reader of the present 
day does not appreciate the rapid develop- 
ment of the change in the customs of the 
world produced by their agency chiefly, and 
by that of other companies in a lesser pro- 
portion. 

In the year of the organization of the 
Wheeler and Wilson company, when Mr. 
Root became a member of it they made 799 
machines. Six years after they made 21,306 
machines. In the last year they made 92,732. 
These figures alone, when thoughtfully inter, 
preted, denote a revolution in the domestic 
life of the world. As early as 1859, the 
writer of these lines heard from a missionary 
in Asia Minor, whose home was on the line of 
the retreat of the ten thousand, her account of 
the wonder excited among barbarous Turks 



4 Biographical Sketch. 

of all ranks by her Wheeler and Wilson's 
machine. 

To see the work of this miracle of Christ- 
ian civilization the pasha in charge of the 
whole district would bring in the wondering 
friends who came to visit him and would ask 
this lady to set her machine at work, as the 
emperor of China might have asked Aladdin 
to show off the wonderful lamp to him. 

Mr. Root continued in active business in 
his connection with the Wheeler and Wilson 
company for ten years. After that period 
he retired from active business but kept him- 
self constantly occupied in the pursuits of 
literature and art which always had for him 
a special interest. Singularly quiet and un- 
obtrusive, his opinions were the more valued 
in the circle of his literary and artist friends 
and the delicacy and accuracy of his taste 
gave peculiar value to his criticisms. 



Biographical Sketch. 5 

Sometimes, but not so often as we could 
wish, he put these criticisms on paper for the 
press and we should enhance the value of this 
little memoir by republishing some of them ; 
but he disliked publicity perhaps with an 
over sensitiveness and we have met with 
more than one person, quite closely connected 
with him in business affairs, who did not so 
much as know that this quiet gentleman was 
a student of delicate taste and wide know- 
ledge whose decisions were highly valued by 
those who consulted him. 

Mr. Root's library, his cabinet, and his col- 
lection of pictures were not what would be 
called large by the drag-net collectors. He 
formed his own opinions and as we have in- 
timated acted upon them. 

He therefore bought what he wanted quite 
regardless of its cost, and probably never 



6 Biographical Sketch. 

bought what other people wanted him to buy 
simply because they thought it curious. 

His collection of books is remarkably strong 
in the department of Biography. 

He had been earnestly engaged for three 
years in illustrating the Life of W. H. Prescott 
by George Ticknor, a work in which he took 
great pride and for which he was eminently 
fitted. 

In his collection of prints there are rare 
portraits which could hardly be found else- 
where in America. 

The same interest was exhibited by him in 
Numismatics, he having been for many years 
an active member of the Numismatic society 
of this city. 

He joined the Historic Genealogical Society 
in the year 1866, and had a thorough know- 
ledge of all its workings. 

These lines merely supply a few data 



Biographical Sketch. 7 

and other external memoranda of the life of 
a man very dear to his family, to a circle of 
close friends and to his associates. 

He was always reticent so far as any criti- 
cism or expression went which might seem to 
bring him before the public ; but in domestic 
or social life, no man lent himself more eagerly 
to the wishes or purposes of his friends. His 
books, his pictures, and his curiously accurate 
information were all at their disposal. 

He was very happy in his home and it was 
interesting to see how, in looking forward to 
another journey in Europe, he struggled with 
his unwillingness to break off from those he 
loved so dearly, from the quiet charities, the 
constant courtesies, the easy hospitalities, 
and the unfailing occupations of his home life. 

From that journey in Europe we should 
all of us have derived advantage though per- 
haps we should not have known it. 



8 Biographical Sketch. 

He knew precisely what he was going for, 
what to see, what to study and what to do, 
and he would have so seen, studied and done 
that all of us would have been the gainers. 

But this was not to be. He died suddenly, 
while staying temporarily at Bristol, Conn., 
on the 20th of September, 1875, in the 59th 
year of his age. 




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